Willow
by ncfan
Summary: -Ishida x Orihime- He finds her under the willow tree, as always. AU.


**Characters**: Ishida, Orihime**  
Summary**: He finds her under the willow tree, as always.**  
Pairings**: IshiHime**  
Warnings/Spoilers**: No spoilers; it is, however, massively AU**  
Timeline**: No timeline needed**  
Author's Note**: Written in honor of Halloween. Just think, for the first time, I've written a Halloween fic _on_ Halloween, though to be honest, I started it on the 30th. And please note, this is a "real life" AU.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

"Is this the first time you've come here?"

When he looks up from his homework Ishida is faced by a figure silhouetted with a fiery corona of watery gold sunlight. The summer is beginning to die, but it is still strong enough that the days are warm and the sun is still bright at four-thirty in the afternoon. The weather's growing milder, though. Her voice is strangely insubstantial, like he's hearing it through water

Ishida goes red, despite himself, as the girl sits down beside him. "I can leave," he murmurs, nearly silent and staring down at the ground, anywhere but at her. "I didn't know that anyone else came here."

He tries to get up but the girl grabs his arm and pulls him back down onto the grass. "No, don't go." Her voice is full of a gentle humor and, again, it sounds to Ishida like he's underwater and hearing someone speaking above the surface. He looks at her hard and the effect vanishes as soon as it appeared. "It's nice to have someone with me for once."

The slightly wistful tone of her voice makes him pause, and drink in her appearance, trying to determine the source of that emotion. She has bright coppery auburn hair and warm brown eyes that glimmer faintly as she smiles, knees drawn up to her chest and face turned towards him, one cheek pressed against her knee. Green flower pins glitter in her hair.

"So this is your first time here?" Ishida jumps slightly when he realizes that she's talking again. The light gleams off of her eyes.

Nodding quickly, embarrassed color tinges his cheeks before it vanishes. "Yes, it is. I walk by here every day on the way home from school, but I've never stopped before."

"Really?" She almost seems confused, tilting her head like an inquisitive child. "I come here every day after school." She thumps the heavy book she's laid down on the grass beside her. "It's a nice place to do my homework."

Ishida narrows his eyes at the girl. "I've never seen you here before." Now that he notices it, her school uniform, while plain and non-descript, looks a bit old-fashioned, and the white shirt seems almost…yellowed, somehow.

She flashes a dazzling smile, and all his suspicions melt away at the sight of that smile. "I guess I just get here after you do, most days." The girl seems almost rueful at this, like it's some sort of fault. "My school isn't very close to here." She pulls the book onto her lap with a huff and draws a pencil from the pocket of her dark blue sweater.

For a few moments, there's silence, which is Ishida's natural state and the only one he's truly comfortable in or ever will be comfortable in, he's sure. The long, drooping branches of the weeping willow tree above them sway and whisper, casting dappled shadows over Ishida's history book as he mouths out words soundlessly.

Oddly, he doesn't object to her presence by leaving, like he might with anyone—_Everyone_, he admits if he's honest with himself—else.

Then, the girl starts up again, soft voice whispering like the branches above them. "I almost forgot. My name's Inoue Orihime. What's yours?"

Again, Ishida is startled by the way all defenses are down but doesn't stop to question it. "Ishida Uryuu…" He sneaks a shy glance at Orihime which he's relieved she doesn't seem to notice. "It's nice…to meet you."

Orihime only smiles again, sweet and unconcerned but with eyes strangely knowing and knowledgeable.

Her pencil makes no sound as it scratches across the paper.

.

The soft, fine grass puts a sweet smell in the air that's hardly unwelcome in any sense, as Ishida tracks the familiar path back towards the willow tree on the gentle slope of the embankment by the river. He's surprised to see that Orihime's already there as he walks over the bridge.

He can vividly remember the last time he was eager to see anyone at all, and the flash of copper hair and emerald hairpins gives him the same warm feeling that it did whenever he saw his grandfather smile at him in welcome, though that inevitably brings up memories of Grandfather dying when he was a child and has forever tarnished his ability to grow accustomed to people.

It's a little surprising, that he's happy to see her at all.

"Inoue-san?" Ishida can't quite keep confusion out of his voice, as he settles into the grass of the gentle hill beside her, balancing a text book on his knees. "I thought you said it took you longer to get here."

The rushing water below holds its whispers and seems to meld with her voice. Orihime laughs, eyes crinkling upwards. "I found a short-cut. I guess it works, huh?"

Ishida does his best to put suspicion from his mind at this. There's no lie of any sort on her smooth, guileless face. "Yes, I…suppose it does." He blinks and stares at the grass, finding it nearly impossible to meet her gaze.

There's no more words after that. They fall into the groove as if it's always been this way.

No sound comes from Orihime's pencil, as it scratches across the paper.

.

"Ugh, I hate all these equations." Orihime rubs her forehead as if in pain, brow furrowing and contorting her pretty face. She stares down in frustration at the mass of problems on the page of her trigonometry. "I hate math," she declares firmly and slams her pencil down on the book.

The look on her face, almost like that of a child with a puzzle she can't solve and is irritated by it, makes Ishida bite his tongue to keep from smiling (That he wants to smile at all comes as something of a shock). "Don't you have a calculator?" he asks gently, flicking off a small willow leaf that falls onto his own trig book with one absent hand.

She shakes her head silently, hair shining as it catches the light.

Seeing Ishida's startled expression behind the reserved mask of his face, Orihime shrugs, slightly uncomfortable. "We don't have any calculators at my high school."

"Well…" Ishida leans over and whips his slightly battered (he got it second-hand) but fully functional calculator out of his school bag, and hands it to her tentatively. Orihime frowns pensively and turns it over in her small hands, bitten nails tracing the lines of the device.

"I've never used one of these before," she murmurs, brown eyes shining with curiosity. Orihime holds the calculator back out to Ishida. "Will you show me how it works?"

Ishida's quick to shake off his confusion, that Orihime's gotten to high school level and never used a calculator before, and decides that he's seen plenty stranger things in his life and doesn't find the revelation that teaching Orihime to use a device she should have been familiar with since elementary school is enjoyable to be at all displeasing.

.

He's learned to expect to see Orihime at the willow tree before he is, and Ishida finds her beneath the willow tree, just as always. Today, she's sitting on the very edge of the grassy bank, socks and shoes off and sliding her feet lazily through the clear water of the river. Her dark blue sweater is folded neatly beside her.

But there's something off about this.

Ishida frowns, not displeased but concerned.

It's Saturday.

"You come here on the weekends too?" The words are blurted, out of his mouth before he can stop them. Ishida stands with one hand braced on the gray-brown trunk of the tree.

For a pregnant moment that feels more like a year Orihime doesn't answer or even acknowledge her presence. The light shining off of her hairpins is blinding, makes them seem more like stars. She's twisting a pale purple flower in her hand absently; Ishida recognizes it as an aster.

Then, she turns round and smiles, and pats the ground to her right. "Come sit down."

He shakes his head, suddenly awkward to the roots of his bones. "Oh, no thank you, Inoue-san, I—"

"Come on," she wheedles, smiling wistfully.

"O-okay." Not entirely sure that this is a good idea, Ishida settles down onto the grass beside her, looking down at his feet. "So you come here on the weekends, too?" he asks, repeating his question.

Orihime shrugs, and there's something taut in her smile. Ishida notes it with discomfort; it's just a little too close to his own life. She's not as happy as she outwardly appears.

"I was raised by my brother, but he died when I was twelve so the apartment's pretty empty." She then laughs, a pretty laugh that somehow seems hollow underneath. "I'm supported by a cousin I've never met. It sounds incredibly clichéd, doesn't it?"

"Oh." Ishida is trying to string together softly-spoken words that won't stutter. A sharp stab of discomfort and… it is pain, he realizes, after a moment. Pain's no stranger to him. "But…don't you have any friends, anyone to be with?"

Her smile softens considerably, brown eyes narrowed against the sun. The outline of her body flickers from solid to hazy to solid in an instant. "You're here too," Orihime points out quietly, framing a gentle question in a statement.

Ishida is brought to mind of his small apartment a few blocks away, empty and at times unbearably lonely. There's no one to see; the only person he might see, he doesn't _want_ to see.

"Nothing to see here," he admits with a wry, bitter smile. "No one to see."

"No one but me, huh?" Orihime pulls her hair back behind her ears as she smiles. "That's kind of sad, all things considered. We've never met aside from here."

A little bit of water splashes as Orihime kicks her long, slim legs in the water. "There was this boy I had a huge crush on. I would have liked to get his attention, but he barely knew I was alive." That absent voice is self-deprecating in its vague, whimsical humor; Orihime can barely disguise the mockery of herself. "He was always chasing after another girl instead, though they both always denied it. I always tried so hard to get him to notice me, but he was completely oblivious."

"Oh." Ishida's cheeks burn suddenly; his stomach ties itself into knots. Sneaking a long look at her, he suddenly wishes he hadn't come today. "I'm…I'm sorry."

Her hand on his skin is warm and feather-light, doesn't really feel like skin at all, as Orihime leans over and kisses his cheek. Ishida stiffens and blushes a deep shade of crimson, eyes widening in shock behind his glasses. "Inoue-san—"

"You're sweet." Orihime's pleasant smile and ready words robs Ishida of the words trying to get unstuck from his throat. "But don't be sorry. I'm alright…now."

It bothers him later, how long it takes Orihime to say that she's alright, but as for right now Ishida's just trying to get over the shock that she just kissed him.

It was… nice.

.

"Hold still; you're only making this harder."

The cool voice has a frigid snap to it and Ishida flinches while at the same time he starts to grind his teeth, keeping his mouth shut in a last-ditch effort to keep bitter anger from escaping through his lips.

The hand on his bony shoulder jerks him back on the table sharply and Ishida winces at the pain this causes.

Trust Ryuuken to try to add a new bruise while treating the others.

He had to go to a hospital this time, as much as he didn't want to. And of course, Ryuuken, who seems to know everything that goes on into the hospital, saw fit to grab his arm and drag him in the direction of a back room without saying a word. The sensation of hands pressing him into the road still shivers over him and he bites his tongue as cold, astringent, hospital-issue antiseptic stings over the ripped skin on his back.

"These are some impressive friction burns you seem to have acquired," Ryuuken murmurs, almost to himself. "I take it you couldn't run quite fast enough?"

The caustic sarcasm in Ryuuken's voice, too blatant to not be intentional, is what finally drives Ishida to speak. "I fail to see," he says, very softly, "how it's any of your business."

Ryuuken's answer is immediate, eyes hooded. "You made it my business when you came here."

After what seems an eternity Ryuuken's done with the bandages and Ishida pulls his shirt back on, sore and aching and ready to leave and, in theory, never interact with his father again, though he knows that thought is too good to be true.

Ryuuken narrows his eyes at his son, an unreadable expression on his face that makes Ishida a little nervous, before reaching out and touching a bruise on Ishida's cheekbone with the tips of his fingers. Ishida yelps in pain and jumps back, and Ryuuken's hand flies away from his face as if burned.

Within a second, his father's face has rearranged itself back into the icy mask. "Remember to duck next time." Ishida squeezes his eyes tightly shut. "And for God's sake, fight back. I know you know how."

"Don't you think I tried?"

Ishida finds himself thinking almost longingly of willow trees and flashes of emerald green as he leaves.

.

He can hear her singing to herself before he sees her, soft, sweet voice traveling on the wind that is stronger today than normal, whistling through his ears. He only catches hints of the music, words he can't understand from this distance.

There are red spider lilies starting to bloom on the banks of the river, in with the asters, signaling at last the start of the death of summer.

Just beyond the willow tree, whose swaying branches seem imbued with the suggestion of her voice, Orihime sits on the edge of the bank again, singing without words under her breath and twirling an aster in her hand again. Her sweater is again folded neatly beside her, socks and shoes pulled off, but she's pulled her feet out of the water; water beads gleam on her flesh.

Ishida feels some trepidation as he settles onto the grass at her side. Orihime isn't smiling, her face pale and somewhat strained; small shadows have appeared under her eyes. He can't quite make out the words of her song as she twists the aster in her hand, plucking pale purple petals, ripping them up from the flower head casually. He sits in silence, watching her half-destroy the flower, completely lost for words. There's a single red spider lily sitting on her lap, untouched.

Orihime finally acknowledges his presence and when she looks up, her eyes widen and then narrow in shock, seeing the day-old bruise on his face like a bruise on the flesh of a peach. "What happened to you?" she asks incredulously. There's concern in her eyes as she reaches out and touches the bruise on his cheek.

Ishida flinches, but doesn't pull away from her like he did from his father. "I didn't duck fast enough," he admits as way of explanation, ruefulness thick in his voice.

Her face softens in sympathy as she lets her hand fall back to her lap and she starts to pluck at the aster again, before stopping and letting it be, half-naked now with the petals strewn about her lap and her wet legs.

"We're reading _Hamlet_ in class now," she informs him absently, nibbling on her lower lip. Brown eyes, slightly shadowed but still glimmering like sunlight off of the river, look up at Ishida curiously. "Have you read _Hamlet_?"

Nodding silently, Ishida feels his concern grow, instinctive and unconscious.

"I feel so sorry for Ophelia," Orihime chooses to say, going back to examine the aster in her hands with fixated fascination. "She was put in a horrible situation, don't you think?" The violent carmine shade of the spider lily almost looks like a spider web of blood on her leg. Ishida blinks hard to banish the sight from his mind.

Worry is now impossible to ignore. "Inoue-san…" He stares at her, before working up the words, almost inaudible "…what's wrong?"

The way she smiles is heartbreakingly sad and beautiful, the green of her hairpins again looking like little stars. "Nothing," Orihime murmurs, shaking her head as if shaking off water.

Ishida finds himself staring at her again, mouth growing dry. He'd like to do something—hug her, kiss her, something, anything—but isn't quite sure how to go about doing any of that; it's not like he's ever been in this position before. He knows now that she is indisputably lying, but is also unsure if he should pry.

After a moment's contemplation, he decides it would be better to pry.

But Orihime cuts him off. "I have to go," she murmurs quietly, face strangely expressionless as gathers up her sweater and pulls on her shoes, tucking her socks away in a pocket. The aster's left to fall into the river, floating downstream, but she keeps a hold on the spider lily as she stands up.

Alarm sweeps over him as Ishida springs up to his feet beside her, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Can I…can I walk with you?" he blurts out awkwardly, looking away as a dull flush rises up his pale, hollow cheeks.

A soft laugh follows, never fully leaving Orihime's mouth. Her eyes are warm again, but still look tired. "That's alright. I always get home safely. Here." Orihime presses the spider lily into his hands before walking away.

Ishida is only distracted for a moment, staring down, disturbed, at the lily, but when he looks up, she's gone.

"Inoue-san?"

No voice answers his call.

She's gone, nowhere to be seen, as if she was never there at all. There's not even a shallow indentation in the grass on the river bank where she was sitting, thought the aster petals still flutter in the breeze.

.

It's raining hard, the driving rain pounding into his skin as Ishida crosses the bridge on the way home from school, running as hard as he can with his bag slamming against his leg. He won't be stopping by the willow tree today.

But as he runs, he spots something small and dark sitting on the edge of the bank.

After a moment, Ishida realizes that it's Orihime's navy blue, nearly black sweater, folded neatly on the bank.

Rushing down to get it, he looks for Orihime, hoping that she hasn't come down here despite the rain.

There's no sign of her; Ishida grabs her sweater and walks away, telling himself he'll bring it back for her tomorrow.

As he walks away, Ishida hears what sounds like a voice from the water, calling, but when he turns round and stares, slightly wild-eyed, at the rushing torrent, there's no one there.

.

He returns the next day, the blue sweater tucked into his school bag (he had to put it by the radiator in order for it to dry in time for school). Ishida smiles despite himself as he crosses the bridge and sees a dark shape sitting under the willow tree. He'll be able to give Orihime her sweater back, he thinks.

The sweet smell of grass fills his lungs, but Ishida stops, confused, when he comes closer to the weeping willow.

It's not Orihime sitting under the swaying, whispering branches of the tree. The head his eyes burn into has not long auburn hair the shade of autumn gold, but short hair with the ends curling out, a bright, shining shade of silver.

"Can I help you?" The eyes that meet his are not warm brown, but violet, rimmed blue around the edges.

Ishida feels his face flush scarlet, his eyes falling to the bank. There's no more asters, he notices dully, even though they were in full bloom just two days ago. Just a thick layer of scarlet red spider lilies, swaying gently in the breeze. "I…I was…looking for someone," he murmurs, voice barely rising over a whisper. "A girl named Inoue Orihime. She left this." He draws the sweater from his bag.

The elderly woman's face changes when Ishida murmurs Orihime's name. She pales, but composes herself in an instant. "My name is Kuchiki Rukia." She just looks weary to the bone now, and a little sad. Something ominous sounds in the hollow of his chest. "And we're waiting for the same person." She sweeps her dark purple haori aside to allow a place for Ishida to sit. "But come sit down and tell me your name. There's something you should know."

.

Rukia is a tiny woman, elderly, probably a good fifteen, twenty years older than Ishida's father but at the same time younger than his grandfather would have been if he was still alive. She's well-kept, her shining silver hair glistening in the watery sunlight and small hands manicured. There are deep smile lines around her mouth and the skin of her hands is not as firm as it would have been in youth, but other than that, there's little sign of age on her body, seeming instead ageless.

She has Orihime's sweater spread on her lap, fingering the dark blue thread with a strange longing in her eyes.

"Inoue died fifty years ago, you know."

She says this the way someone would comment on the weather, casual and offhand.

Ishida stares at her, something cold and dark and painful washing over his bones. _What… No… _He gapes at Rukia. "What…What do you mean…That can't be…"

Rukia smiles sadly, gently, a smile so like Orihime that it takes his breath away. "I am sorry. I'm not lying to you. I wouldn't lie about something like that."

Ishida falls to silence, staring white-lipped at her, waiting for her to speak.

Small hands roam across the sweater, finding the tag at the collar that has Orihime's name written in shaky kanji on it. "I'd heard rumors of course; people would claim to see a girl walking along the riverbank, wading in the water or walking on the bridge, and that she'd be gone in an instant, but that they'd still be able to hear her singing to herself for nearly a minute afterwards." Rukia looks hard at Ishida, violet eyes piercing. "I didn't believe it until you came with this though. Those rumors…" Her face darkens. "They made me so angry. It sounded like the sort of thing teenagers would tell their friends to scare them." She holds the sweater up to her nose, breathing in deeply. "God… It even smells like the perfume she used."

Ishida noticed that the night before. Even soaking wet, the sweater was infused with a strange, eerie perfume. His whole apartment is filled with the sweet smell now, fresh and clear, smelling like spring. Personally, he hopes it will never go away, and knows deep down that it never will.

"What…happened?" Ishida whispers, staring at her with blue eyes huge in his face.

Rukia shrugs, face contorting in pain. "Inoue…Inoue always loved swimming in this river," she says dully. "She always wanted to go swimming, even when she really shouldn't have. She loved the flowers, too, the asters especially.

"Well, one day after school when it looked like it was going to storm, Inoue told me that she was going to go swimming in the river. I…" Her eyes cloud "…I tried to talk her out of it, but I couldn't get her to change her mind." Rukia swallows, then seems almost angry at herself for the weakness. "Maybe if I had just tried a little harder…

"Sure enough, it started to storm, hard. The river was swollen, just like it is now.

"We…" Rukia falters, heavy eyes staring off into nothing "…we, Ichigo, Arisawa and I, found her the next day, in the water. Inoue seemed so close to life that I remember thinking, just for a moment, that if I called out to her, her eyes might have opened and she would have just swam back to shore, but nothing doing; she had drowned. Her hair was all strewn in the water, fanned out. She looked…she looked…"

"…Looked like Ophelia, from _Hamlet_?" Ishida fills in softly.

She looks up, surprised. "Yes… We were reading it in class at the time. She did love that play." Rukia rolls her eyes. "Inoue was a sweet girl but she could be incredibly morbid at times." Rukia stares hard into the swollen, rushing river as if expecting a sleek, auburn head to peak from the surface of the water, and Ishida surprises himself by realizing he's waiting for it too. "Like Ophelia, her death was ruled an accident, but…"

Ishida flinches, and swallows hard. "But you think she committed suicide?"

Rukia shakes her head vigorously. "I'm not sure. I'm really not sure." She sounds pained now, even more so than before. "It was what everyone thought. Inoue was never really happy, as much as she tried to pretend that she was—" and Ishida remembers the strained, pale face that greeted him the day before yesterday "—but she wasn't the sort to throw her life away like that. She always believed…always believed that there would be a better day, someday."

Ishida squeezes his eyes tightly shut. That fits in perfectly with the Orihime he knew—and his eyes sting when the cold realization sweeps over him, that he will probably never see her again. He doesn't know why he's come to this thought but just knows, the way he knows that the river is before him, that it is the truth.

"She could always see the loneliness in anyone around her." Rukia's rambling a bit now, or so Ishida thinks. "Inoue could tell when someone else was lonely, probably because she was so lonely herself. I think that's why she befriended me; she always went for the lonely ones." She smiles knowingly up at Ishida. "Am I right?"

Scarlet, as red as the spider lilies, creeps up his cheeks and Rukia laughs knowingly, eyes full of bittersweet mirth. "It's sad to say," he murmurs finally, "that the only friend I have ever had died half a century ago."

The look Rukia pulls makes Ishida think that maybe she's sorry she laughed. She rolls over the sweater in her hands. "This was never found, you know." Suddenly, she holds it out to Ishida. "Here, take it."

Ishida holds up his hands, pulling away. "No…I…"

She gives him a half-exasperated glare. "Inoue left it for you, not for me. It's pretty clear she wanted you to have it. Just take it."

Finally, Ishida accepts the softly woven sweater and the smell from it rises up and fills his nostrils. He feels a little warmer.

Just a little.

Rukia settles deep into the grass. "I don't need a sweater to remember Inoue," she mutters, moody. "I'll see her again." She looks up at Ishida, and smiles, much more gentle than she has been, more gentle than Ishida thought she could be. "We both will."

His eyes sting again, as he remembers Orihime as he saw her, the first day. She didn't seem all there, a nimbus of fiery gold light around her. Her voice had seemed to come through the water.

Ishida will always be listening for her now, for a song in the water, a soft voice in the swaying branches of the willow tree, whispers in the spider lilies. Something, anything to catch a hint of her.

He will always wait for her now.

* * *

Fun facts: The aster and the red spider lily are both late summer-early fall flowers. The name aster comes from the Latin _astrum_, meaning "star"; it's often believed to be a symbol of love and patience. The red spider lily, on the other hand, is a symbol of death.


End file.
